Digital Technologies and Labour Law (LAWS90205)

Digital technologies raise new and challenging issues for labour law. This subject engages students with cutting-edge research on how digital technologies might frame the new world of work, with a focus on both national and transnational developments. The subject engages with key and emerging debates in labour law, including those relating to the regulation of the gig economy, social media and privacy, workplace monitoring, algorithmic discrimination and automation, and the use of regulatory technologies. It considers trends in legal and policy reform (including legislation and court judgements), and the ways in which labour law might need to be reformed to adapt to digital technologies. Drawing on the insights of expert international guests from academia, government and the union movement, it connects students with the leading experts in the field. The lecturers in this subject combine many years of academic scholarship in this area, engagement in law reform debates and practical advice to national and international regulators.

This subject provides a critical examination of the impact of digital technologies on work and labour law. It will focus on federal and Victorian jurisdictions, but also refer to international developments (including those at the ILO, in the European Union and the United States).

Principal topics will include:

• ‘Gig’ work, precarity and employment status, particularly where mediated through digital labour platforms;
• Algorithms, machine learning and equality law;
• Automation of work;
• Off-shoring and global work;
• Organising and collective bargaining in a digital age;
• Workplace monitoring, surveillance, and privacy;
• Social media in recruitment and disciplinary proceedings;
• Remote work and workplace inclusion;
• The use of regulatory technologies by statutory agencies.